This invention has relation to a tape recorder/playback machine in which intelligence is recorded and played back on an audio tape permanently mounted on two takeup reels within a cassette which in turn is mounted in the recorder/playback machine. The invention has relation primarily to the playback phase of operation; and provides a mechanism whereby the tape in the tape recorder can be repeatedly backed up for any one of a number of preselected distances. This allows the user to stop the machine in a usual or preferred manner each time he has played back the section which he wants to repeat, to rewind a portion of the tape of just the right length back past the playback head, and then to start the playback machine in any usual or preferred manner; thus to playback the intelligence over again. The method will be repeated as many times as desired. This invention finds use where the inflections of a language or the subtleties of a musical composition are being studied and learned by the user of the invention, for example.
Tape recorder/playback machines are each provided with a cassette well to receive a generally rectangular cassette having reel mounted audio tape therein. The tape in the cassette passes along a portion of the outside of one of the longer longitudinal edges of the cassette; and means is provided in the playback machine to extend into the cassette on both sides of the tape to drive the tape in forward direction at a constant speed for the purpose of recording and/or playback of intelligence on the magnetic tape. A suitable recording head and a suitable playback head are situated in each recorder/playback machine in position to come in operational contact with the magnetic tape, for example, as it moves through the machine in forward direction. The tape in the cassette is mounted on forward and reverse tape takeup reels, and each of those reels is provided with a drive sprocket at the center thereof. There is an opening in the case of the cassette to allow forward and reverse drive pinions of the recorder/playback machine to extend into the cassette to be in operational driving relationship with respect to the forward and reverse drive sprockets of the tape reels.
Suitable mechanisms and controls including appropriately labeled manually operable control bars can be provided in the recorder/playback machine to drive the tape in forward direction to play back the intelligence recorded on the magnetic tape (PLAY); to drive the tape in forward direction to record intelligence on the tape (RECORD-PLAY); to drive the tape in forward direction at relatively high speed (FAST FORWARD); to drive the tape backward at high speed (REWIND); to stop the progres of the tape through the cassette and the machine (STOP); and to eject the cassette from the machine (EJECT).
Before the present invention when it became desirable to repeat a phrase or other small portion of the intelligence on the tape in the playback phase of operation it was necessary for the operator to stop the machine (press (STOP); to rewind the machine in the fast rewind phase (push REWIND); and, almost immediately, to interrupt the fast rewind phase (push STOP). The intelligence would then be repeated by starting up the machine (push PLAY).
In practice, this procedure is entirely unsatisfactory, as it is impossible to consistently rewind the tape, by this method, to any particular predetermined point; and so the phrase which it is desired to repeat either is often not entirely repeated, or is more often repeated only after the intelligence on the tape preceding it is also repeated. Since the same amount of rewind cannot be obtained consistently; the user's mind is necessarily on the mechanics of trying to back up the machine the right amount rather than being on the phrase which is supposed to be repeated over and over to him.
A preliminary search was completed in the public search facilities of the United States Patent and Trademark Office in the pertinent subclassifications related to magnetic tape transport and drives in Class 242, Winding and Reeling; and nothing which shows a precision means of backing up an exact length of tape in a cassette in a playback machine has been located.
The patents cited in this search were:
U.s. pat. No. 3,865,331 to Clever, granted Feb. 11, 1975; PA1 U.s. pat. No. 3,857,532 to Bastiaans, granted Dec. 31, 1974; PA1 U.s. pat. No. 3,791,609 to Roma, granted Feb. 12, 1974; PA1 U.s. pat. No. 3,869,099 to Inaga, granted FEb. 4, 1975; and PA1 U.s. pat. No. 3,875,590 to Mandish, granted Apr. 1, 1975.